A new Israeli soccer star is on the rise. Tomer Hemed turned Israel’s recent World Cup qualifying games against Luxembourg into his own personal coming out party. The 25-year-old striker scored a hat trick in Israel’s 6-0 win in Luxembourg City last Friday, and then followed it up with two more goals in a 3-0…
With a population of just over 23,000, the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona doesn’t often get a chance to stand out on the map of Israel. On Thursday, however, the city’s Israeli Premier League soccer club took a big step towards putting its hometown on the map in Europe. This past spring, Hapoel Ironi…
A pattern of rhythmic claps emanated from the upper deck of the Red Bull Arena in Harrison, N.J., as North London’s Tottenham Hotspur attempted to best the New York Red Bulls in a preseason exhibition soccer game this summer. But this was no average expression of fandom: Each round of claps was punctuated by a…
A French judge has fined a French soccer fan for making a Hitler salute at a match and banned him from entering his city’s main stadium. The court in Brest, in western France, imposed a $910 fine on the 32-year-old man, according to the news site Paris Depeches. He was seen making the Hitler salute…
So how is that the current Prime Minister of Israel has been using crutches for the past two months in order to move from place to place, and we haven’t even seen one photo? On Monday, Netanyahu arrived at the Knesset for the first time since he tore a tendon during a soccer match with…
In the shadow of the Euro 2012 soccer championship, a smaller yet more intellectually profound sports event, took place last week in Haifa. Israel hosted the so-called Authors’ Euro, an international tournament of national soccer teams consisting of writers and poets. For three days, German, Italian and Israeli authors battled for the cup. In between,…
As many had feared, racism has reared its ugly head at Euro 2012. Italian football star Mario Balotelli was subjected to non-stop verbal abuse during the Italy-Spain match earlier this week at the Arena Gdansk in Poland. The Mirror reported that 300 Spanish fans made monkey chants at Balotelli, and that the stewards (ushers) thought…
In an educational effort to combat the troublesome phenomenon of anti-Semitism and racism in soccer, England’s national football team will visit Auschwitz and other Holocaust-related sites while in Poland next week for the Euro 2012 tournament. According to the Algemeiner, the team will visit Auschwitz some time between its arrival in Poland on June 6…
